The Zone

by Rostok

2: One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

Yar moved with purpose, rifle at the ready, stalking along the side of the concrete wall to his left. The sounds of the wind and rustle of every footfall of his boots in the grassy verge filled his focus. The gentle rumbles and humming of the scattered anomalies were comfortingly familar noises. Against the invisible monstrosity they might be his last line of defense. The geiger counter's click was there too, but he'd been a stalker so long now that the sound itself barely registered. It was almost a fully integrated sense at this point. Even so, the sinister meaning behind the clicking wasn't to be taken lightly. The Chernobyl NPP grounds was littered nasty pockets of radiation, and the monster wouldn't be taking a detour around them like he had to.

He felt he'd done a good job staying safe, all things considered, but deep down he knew he was in deep shit. Days of poor rest and exposure to radiation and the elements had left him sluggish and nauseous, not unlike when he'd still been smoking the herb in the old Freedom days. It's just it was more than that. He could feel the weariness creeping up on him, slowly worming it's way into his bones. His whole body ached. At first it was easily attributed to tiredness, but now it was becoming a dull burn coiling through all his muscles and innards. The denial about the kind of radiation dose that most stalkers didn't survive was fading.

Death from radiation poisioning wasn't something that they'd talked about much back in the day. The perils of mutants, fanatics and anomalies were the source of many a tall tale, but radiation was the silent killer. Many a stalker would start getting a thick, wet cough; or the shits; or burning pains and shivers throughout their body that were clearly more than just some bad food or a bad cold. They'd put on a brave face and try to laugh it off. And within a few days they'd have disappeared, and their friends would lament at how the mutants had finally caught brave Dimi.

But they knew deep down. Knew the poor bastard had curled up somewhere in agony until they'd found the desperation to shoot themselves.

So with every step, every stab of pain in his gut and rasping breath Yar took that carried him around the edge of the power plant's massive walls, he knew he was fucked.

In the distance, two figures danced. He raised his eye to his scope.

He wasn't quite as fucked as the smaller of the two figures, a man without a gun, facing off with against the horrific bloodsucker.

---

There was probably a set of old crutches somewhere in the ruined hospital just a few blocks away, but backtracking past a pack of dogs was suicide. Strelok had to press on. Leaning against walls, supporting himself on irradiated trucks, whatever it took, he hobbled through Pripyat.

The razor-sharp focus of the experienced stalker was gone, crushed by the cruel indignity of being helpless before jaws of death that refused to shut. By all rights, he should be dead, his body wanted to be dead but that omnious edifice of concrete on the horizon was taunting him.

So, one agonizing step after another.

---

The distant figures were slashing and feinting at each other; motions heavy, bodies weary. The mutant bloodsucker was instantly recognisable, a terrifying silhouette that dwarfed it's opponent. The other, a man in an exoskeleton armed with some kind of knife, slowly backing away from the beast ahead of him. At this distance, it was impossible to tell exactly where the bloodsucker had taken the two bullets, but it was favouring it's left side. Claws and steel baited each other, held by shaky arms like boxers in the final round.

It was hard to be sure, but Yar doubted either had spotted him. Now was his chance to finish the big fucker off.

He stalked forwards, rifle at the ready. With the way these two were constantly moving, dancing erratically around each other, a shot at this range held little certainty. He'd need to get closer. That is, unless the poor bastard of man was pounced by the monster. Then it'd hopefully stop to feed. A fatal mistake.

Yar had no idea who the man was, through the dirt and bloodstains he couldn't even make out the livery on the exosuit. Even so, he felt a surge of camaraderie for the fellow. How long since he'd seen a friendly face? He was a loner by nature but seeing that someone, even just one man, had managed to survive to this point too sparked fresh hope in him. For a moment he even forgot the cruel certainty of death by radiation poisoning.

---

This was the final test for Sickle. Death was facing him in the form of colossal bloodsucker. Ten feet of gnarled black muscle and long vicious claws. If there were supernatural forces from the Monolith inside, they were favouring him. He would already be dead if it weren't for the blood streaming from bullet-holes in it's hide. Whoever it's last victim was, they'd gone down fighting and given him a chance.

It had crept up on him, to his shame, and tried to jump him as he was finishing his poor excuse for a meal. A sudden screetch and pounding of footsteps upon the earth as it rushed from the shadows, barreling into him. The wounds had made it sloppy, and connecting poorly with 130kg of metal-clad man at high speed had left them both scrabbling around on the floor. Maybe another man would have died then, but this predator had met it's match in Sickle. Even as claws raked at his faceplate, his mailed fist slammed into the side of it's head.

He tried to go for the kill there and then, but it's long arms left an inpenetrable flurry of claws as it retreated, concussed. So they found themselves at an impasse, two merciless killers on the edge of death.

Sickle had to admit, it was looking bad. The gunshot wounds weren't draining it's stamina like he'd hoped. With the shorter arms and only his sickle, he was at a disadvantage. Trying to go on the offensive now, in full view of the thing would get him torn apart. So step by step he circled, carefully avoiding the thing's attempts to corrall him into a corner. Waiting for an opportunity to counter-attack.

It didn't come.

His boot slipped on some debris and he stumbled. In the blink of an eye, he was on the floor, fending off as it ripped and scraped at his exosuit. He'd caught one arm with the sickle as it charged, cutting deep into the flesh as it tried to hold it back, but to no avail. There was no time to think. Just a mad panic, shoving and punching at the thing as it's claws slashed.

And then it exploded off him in a deafening crack. Gore showered him as it's body was thrown away, nearly ripped in two at the torso. He lay there, hyperventilating, heart pounding, lenses obscured by blood.

---

Yar approached the man, still laying there on the ground. He was breathing, his chest visibly pulling air through the abused facemask filters. There was blood everywhere, mostly the bloodsucker's, but there was no telling how deep it's claws had managed to rip before he shot it.

His rifle was still in his hands until he was standing over the two of them, observing the snapped spine and mangled innards spilling out from the mutant. He slung the SVD over his shoulder and squatted down, holding out his hand. The man below him grasped it shakily, and with herculean effort Yar managed to pull him into a sitting position. Even up close, the fresh blood made it impossible to identify him. At a best guess, Yar would have said a loner from the lack of the brash red of Duty or yellow of Freedom used on most exosuits.

"Thank you." came the monotone, emotionless words of gratitude. One of the Monolith. No one else could speak like that after being mauled. Yar stood and watched him for a moment, half expecting a futile attempt on his life. When none came, he left him be and walked round to look at the horrific monstrosity he'd shot. Superficially a lot like a large bloodsucker, but with far thicker hide and overdeveloped claws. Also, the tell-tale blade lodged in it's arm.

Yar sat down next to the man, rummaging through his pockets for any scraps that could be used for first aid. He was one of Strider's old squad, the oddballs with amnesia.

"I barely recognised you Sickle, with all that blood on you. Don't tell me you tried to stab all the mutants to death?"

"Not far from the truth."

Yar carefully poked around the damage to the exosuit, investigating the tears in the kevlar and fabric. Some were obviously older, with dried blood mixing with fresh. He slowly checked across the torso and arms, wiping away the grime to see if there was any life-threatening bleeding. Then again, he supposed anyone sensible would need a life-threatening brain injury to deliberately find themselves sitting where they were. The worst was a nasty laceration down Sickle's left side, still bleeding profusely, but at least the bulky exosuit layers made it easy to pack in some scraps of cloth for compression and re-appropriate straps on the torn sections of metal to hold it all in place.

The bad news was that the metal exo-skeleton structure itself was totalled. Yar wouldn't like to take a restoration like this on in his workshop, let alone out here. The whole thing needed to be stripped off, leaving the bulky radiation and kevlar undersuit. They worked in silence, carefully removing the servos using scraps to slowly unscrew and unfasten the innumberable joints and connectors needed for it function. For Yar, it felt therapeutic to finally be doing something mechanical again. A tiny scrap of normalcy.